


Na Zdorov'ya

by kittensmctavish



Category: Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Bad Google Translations, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Foreign Language, Language Barrier, Languages, M/M, Oblivious, Romantic Fluff, Secrets, Teasing, things lost in translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 20:48:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14577366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittensmctavish/pseuds/kittensmctavish
Summary: Long after toasts have been made and toast has been eaten, Steven is still asking Andrew what else he knows how to say in Ukrainian.(Also, if anyone was wondering, "na zdorov'ya" means "to your health" in Ukrainian. At least, according to Google Translate.)





	Na Zdorov'ya

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by three things - the toast in the toast episode of "Worth It"; a song from "In the Heights"; and a scene from the movie "Once".
> 
> (Yes, I am being maddeningly vague.) (If you have seen either "In the Heights" or "Once", you can probably guess by the premise of this fic what things from it I am referencing and where this is going.)
> 
> All of my Ukrainian phrases/phonetic spellings come from Google Translate, so they are probably not super accurate. You have been warned.

Long after toasts have been made and toast has been eaten, Steven is still asking Andrew what else he knows how to say in Ukrainian.

He doles out the basic “what you absolutely need to know if traveling abroad” phrases, along with the few random words here and there that he learned because they sounded fun. Like with the toast, Steven parrots some of them back, asking how his pronunciation is.

(“Strashnyy.” Terrible. He tells Steven it means “not bad”.)

They’ve long since finished their ice cream (“morozyvo”) and filming the post-restaurant discussion for the episode. But it’s a nice day, and one can never have too many incidental shots of Steven and Andrew just walking around (according to Adam, anyway). So they walk. And Steven asks to be quizzed on the Ukrainian he’s learned from Andrew up to this point.

“Ty smishnyy,” Andrew laughs.

“Does that mean ‘Yes, Steven, I’ll quiz you’?” Steven asks.

“It means ‘you’re ridiculous’, and I stand by that,” Andrew says with a roll of his eyes and a smile he can’t hide.

“C’mon, Andrew,” Steven says, ignoring the “smishnyy” remark and lightly punching Andrew in the arm. “Quiz me!”

“Oh god…” Same eye roll. Same small smile. “Okay…”

He turns to look at Steven as they walk, with what he hopes is a stern, professor-y type look.

“Kut.”

Steven thinks for a moment.

“…corner.”

“Mahazyn.”

“…store.”

“Lampochka.”

“Lightbulb.”

“You sure?” Andrew raises an eyebrow.

“I’m…sure?” Steven says, suddenly unsure. Andrew stares at him for a moment, hoping to unnerve him a little...make him second-guess himself…

“…three out of three,” Andrew says with a smile. He’s so mean. The relieved smile on Steven’s face is brilliant. “You did all right.”

“You’re…what was it earlier? Smishy?” Steven asks, nudging Andrew’s shoulder.

“Smishnyy.”

“That.”

“Yeah, well…”

“…can you teach me a little more?”

“I think you just wanna hear me say more things in Ukrainian.”

“It’s a beautiful language! I like hearing it!” Steven sounds ridiculously defensive.

“…I mean, sure,” Andrew says with a shrug. “Actually it gets called ‘soloveys’ka mova’ sometimes.”

“What’s that mean?”

“‘The nightingales’ language’. You know. Because it sounds so beautiful.”

“…that IS beautiful.”

Andrew looks over at Steven. And Steven’s looking at him as though he – not the language – had just been called beautiful.

“Yeah, well…” He looks away as he utters the same dismissal he’d uttered not twenty seconds ago. He’s too momentarily shaken to think of anything wittier.

“What other Ukrainian do you know?” Steven asks. Andrew glances over. Steven’s looking down at his shoes as they continue to walk. (Andrew maybe imagines the tinge of rose in Steven’s cheeks...or maybe it’s just the wind chilling the air.)

“Um…” He snorts. “Hirchytsya.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Mustard.”

It’s Steven’s turn to snort.

“Random.”

“Not the most random.”

“What’s the MOST random?”

“Moya sudna na povitryaniy podushtsi povna vuhriv.”

“…which is?”

“‘My hovercraft is full of eels’.”

From a full five feet away, Andrew hears Adam burst into laughter. Both he and Steven turn to watch Adam right himself from having bent over from laughing so hard.

“You like that, Bianchi?” Andrew calls.

“What even?” Steven is giggling, too.

“‘Monty Python’ reference, come on, dude,” Andrew says, nudging Steven’s shoulder slightly harder than Steven had nudged his before.

“I don’t remember that from ‘Holy Grail’,” Steven says.

“It’s from the TV show—you gotta come over, I need to make you watch ‘Flying Circus’ proper.”

“I’ll bring the morozavo…did I get that right?”

“Zakryty.”

“…does that mean yes?”

“Shcho ty dumayesh?”

“That doesn’t answer my question. If anything, that raises further questions.”

There’s a frustration in Steven’s voice that’s more amused than genuine, and Andrew can’t help but laugh. It’s just too fun.  
But he looks over at Steven, who is smiling at him, and he doesn’t look at all fed up with Andrew and this temporary language barrier Andrew’s constructed.

“Ty prekrasny.” It’s almost a sigh, not quite a whisper.

“That sounded like a nice thing,” Steven says, pointing at Andrew, almost brushing the tip of his nose with the tip of his finger. “Did you just say a nice thing about me?”

Andrew’s feet sort of stop on their own accord. Steven is just so…

“Ya zakokhanyy v tebe.”

Steven stops, too, turning to face Andrew fully.

“That sounded important,” he says. “Was that important?” He almost sounds hopeful.

Andrew swallows, thinks…then shakes his head and continues walking.

“No. Nothing important.”

“Oh.” Andrew probably imagines there’s disappointment in Steven’s voice. “Sounded pretty, though.”

“Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> Some of those things at the end deserve translations. 
> 
> ...I don't feel like giving you any. :3
> 
> Feedback welcome and appreciated.


End file.
